comedians

Usually I'm not a fan of reality television, but this new series has potential. ABC has ordered a new show called The Fast & the Funniest from two of the producers of Last Comic Standing.

This comedian competition would be different than Last Comic Standing because it would involve more travel and improvisation. It's easier to be funny when one is in a set location doing pre-rehearsed material. It's much harder when it's not known where the performance is and for whom.

Mind you, the description of the show is somewhat vague in the article. For all that is known, the show could be less like Last Comic Standing and more like Fear Factor. The competition could involve having the comedians eat bugs in the middle of the woods in Arkansas. Or possibly having them fight to the death with machetes. Or not.

Is there any comedian you'd like to see on this show? I vote for Jay Black.

"Very Funny" has been a tagline at TBS for a little while now. It's there to clarify for us that The Bill Engvall Show and Tyler Perry's shows are funny. And I'm glad they did, because I've caught snippets of both House of Payne and Meet the Browns and I swear I would have had no idea they were funny if TBS hadn't told me. That's a public service well appreciated.

Now they're taking this one step further. TBS' The Very Funny Show will feature stand-up comedians being funny. And not just funny, but very funny. Tim Meadows who was the very funny on Saturday Night Live is pegged to host. And by very funny I mean that he was there for a long time. Actually, Tim can be funny in a stand-up environment, so he may do alright here. All of the footage for the November-bowing series will be filmed at a July event called "TBS Presents a Very Funny Festival: Just For Laughs." So at least the comedians on the very funny show will come from this very funny festival meaning it will be very, very funny. Right?

Do you like comedy? Sure, we all do. If you especially like your comedy in written and audio form, these two news items should have you clapping your hands and doing the happy dance:

First, that Comedy Death Ray CD I mentioned earlier will be out on September 12. The 150-minute CD, comprised of sets recorded during the all-night fourth anniversary Comedy Death Ray show at the UCB theater and sets from the SF Sketchfest, will feature such comedians as Patton Oswalt (King of Queens, Comedians of Comedy), Maria Bamford (Comedians of Comedy), David Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development), Paul F. Tompkins (Mr. Show, Best Week Ever), Doug Benson (Best Week Ever, Last Comic Standing), Brian Posehn (Mr. Show, Comedians of Comedy, Just Shoot Me, The Sarah Silverman Program), Neil Hamburger (Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job), and many more.

B.J. Porter and Scott Aukerman of Mr. Show and the weekly Comedy Death Ray showcase in Los Angeles are developing a new late night comedy series for FOX. The new sketch comedy series, according to Aukerman, is based somewhat on the Comedy Death Ray shows and is called The Right Now! Show.

If you've seen Blue Collar TV or any of the Blue Collar movies, you know the comedians always end the night by getting on stage together and riffing.

At Bonaroo, comedians David Cross (Mr. Show, Arrested Development), Aziz Ansari (Human Giant) and Nick Kroll (Cavemen, Human Giant, Best Week Ever) did their own version of the "old pals sitting on stools and shootin' the breeze" act with their list of criteria to determine whether or not you're a "deadneck" -- which, as far as I can tell, means a racist hippie of some sort.

Ricky's leaving, Bill's staying, and a bunch of other things are happening at HBO in regards to comedy (and drama). Here's what's what:

The new drama series, Tell Me You Love Me, kicks off September 9 at 9:00 p.m. It delves into the lives of three couples who all go to the same therapist. There's a couple in their 40s who no longer have sex, a couple in their 30s struggling to have their first child, and a couple in their 20s struggling to remain faithful to one another. So, there's a lot of struggling, in case I didn't use that word enough. The cast includes Jane Alexander, Michelle Borth, Tim DeKay, Aislinn Paul, Adam Scott, Kate Towne, Sonya Walger and Ally Walker.

If that sounds familiar, it's because Rogan made the same accusations against Carlos Mencia not too long ago (and others have accused Mencia of stealing, as well).

I'm not going to comment on whether Rogan's allegations against either of these men are true, but I will say that no idea exists in a vacuum. If you're a comedian and you've come up with a funny joke or concept, it's likely someone else has thought of it, too. I'm not a comedian, but even I've had funny ideas that I later see pop up on The Onion, or Comedy Central, or any number of places. It's probably a comfortable delusion to think everything your brain concocts was pulled from some realm no one else's mind can touch, but that's just not how it works.

So I told you that on May 18 Human Giant would be taking the reins of MTV and MTV2 for 24 hours starting at noon on May 18.

A rather amusing press release has it that MTV will give the series --which features actors Paul Scheer, Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel-- a second season if they get one million hits on their MTV site. A snippet from the release:

Okay, so back on May 9 I found an interview with Human Giant's Paul Scheer (via CC Insider) in which Scheer said that he and his partners in crime, Aziz Ansari and Rob Huebel, would be taking over MTV for a whole 24 hours starting at noon on May 18. I couldn't find anything on MTV's site about it, and then I got distracted by something shiny and wound up forgetting about it.

Well, today The Coming cited an actual e-mail from Scheer himself that makes things a little less vague. It reads:

(S02E20) Up to this point, we've seen how his upbringing, home life, and troubles at school helped to shape Chris' worldview, but this is the first episode where we caught a glimpse of what made Chris want to be a comedian.

Since this series is a somewhat fictional take on Chris' life as a kid, we don't know if the real Chris Rock sneaked downstairs to eavesdrop on his parents listening to Redd Foxx albums, but one assumes young Chris was probably exposed to the legendary comedian at some point, not to mention the likes of Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy and George Carlin.

Normally, any post I wrote up in reference to a video found on YouTube would include the video at the end of the post, but since we try to keep our content at least somewhat family safe, you'll have to check it out over at Dead Frog instead. In case I didn't make it clear, the video is definitely not safe for work.

On May 6 at 9:00 p.m., NBC will air Saturday Night Live in the '90s: Pop Culture Nation. The special, as evidenced in the title, will look at the late night mainstay and the actors who called the show "home" during the '90s. Having gone to high school and college throughout the '90s, this is the era that sticks in my memory the most, when folks like Mike Myers, Adam Sandler, Chris Rock, Norm MacDonald, Phil Hartman, David Spade, Chris Farley and Dana Carvey were just funny guys no one had ever heard of before.

The special will include interviews with former cast members, insight from repeat hosts Alec Baldwin and John Goodman, plus interviews with writers Tim Herlihy and Adam McKay, who went on to successful careers as film writers. If you're a fan of Saturday Night Live, it's probably worth checking out, but especially if you happen to be around my age and these episodes were the ones you quoted and discussed with your friends the next day in school.

These new webisodes are somewhat different than other offerings on Motherload, as amateur comedians can actually upload their own performances to demonstrate what they've learned from the online instructions. In theory, I suppose it's an interesting idea, but the segments suffer from a kind of schizophrenia by trying to be both funny and informative at the same time. I'm not a comedian, but I think most established comedians would tell you that stand-up comedy, or any kind of comedy, isn't something that can be taught. One either has a knack for it, or they don't, and no amount of lessons are going to turn you into Steve Martin anymore than piano sheet music will turn you into Beethoven. The only thing that can turn you into Beethoven is a "spirit meld" orchestrated by a mystical wizard; I think everyone knows that.

The Root of All Evil, a new pilot for Comedy Central starring Lewis Black and featuring comedians Patton Oswalt, Greg Giraldo, and Paul F. Tompkins (not Paul S. Tompkins, as this Craigslist ad reads) is taping tomorrow night in Los Angeles, so if you're in LA and looking for something to do, buy yourself some tickets, and then kick yourself for paying money for free tickets.